Venue:
The Hairy Dog, Derby
Date: 26/02/2022
Expect the unexpected, thats the way to go. Not being familiar with Derby, the Hairy Dog is the sort of 300 capacity dark venue seen in most cities featuring posters of angry metal acts and aging punk outfits, but `70`s Doowop legends Darts?, surely not!
But oh yes, heres Griff Fender still looking sharp and trying to maintain order, resplendent in peacock green is Rita Ray for whom time has appeared to have stopped still and then, the looming figure of the mighty Den Hegarty here to cause chaos just for you.
After the instrumental opening its straight in to Come Back My Love to get the room shaking before diving into deep cuts Mainliner and Destination Love. Back to the hits with Its Raining and Duke of Earl and from the first album, Young Blood and Zing Went The Strings Of My Heart before Den disappears into the audience for I`m Mad/Framed/Cell Block No 9. To round off the evening we get The Boy From New York City and Daddy Cool before being the apt encore of Gotta Go Home.
The audience:
Younger than I expected. We ended down the front with Steph “Darts” Homer and Donna and Ruby, fresh from seeing them in Leeds the night before, massive Darts fans one and all, hats duly doffed in respect. The good natured audience had probably the best Saturday night out in a long time.
It made me think..
Darts dont seem to have hitched up to the heritage trail like their peers. Their intinery is only 8 gigs this year so I suppose each one is a special event. They are still in good voice and with an excellent back catalogue to go at could fill a venue four or five times the size. Remember they emerged at the height of punk but never descended into parody so still have their credibility intact… and they have Den Hegarty! Doowop in the 2022`s, Yes please.
Dart’s? For a minute I thought we were going to get a match report between James ‘The Lethal Biscuit’ Wilson vs. Warren ‘Wazza’ Parry.
Good luck to em! I sleeve-noted a Darts box with Griff (real name Ian Collier, took his moniker from a removals firm!) and realised anew what treasures they were and are.
Rita is an Afrobeat expert and sometime World Service presenter, so more surprises. Sadly, fourth singer Bob Fish (of It’s Raining fame) passed away recently.
Oh no, I did not know that. I’ve been a fan of Darts since I was a kid and finally got to see them at the 100 Club about 15 years ago, but Bob was the one of the four leads that was missing that night.
Den kindly posed for a photo with us all and just before the photo was taken he grabbed my (now ex) wife in a headlock. Perhaps he was trying to tell me something…
@uncle-mick
That sounded a hoot, thanks for posting- really cheered me up!
Playing a 300 sear venue and 8 gigs a year? Presume they all have other jobs?
Well durr, of course they do – who’s actually making a living out of music these days?
Horace Trubridge aka Horatio Hornblower is outgoing General Secretary of the UK Musicians Union, 2017-2022. The election for his successor, who takes over on March 27th, is currently under way.
“The Amazing Darts” was one of the first albums I brought with my own money and so reading this review has given me a nice happy glow. Going to keep my eyes peeled and see if they play in the south east now.
Me too, to both things you said.
The 100 Club, Saturday 4th of June. They were one of my first musical loves, and I’m definitely considering it.
Love Darts…got back into them over Christmas a few years ago when I watched the TOTP 1978 special with Noel Edmonds in a fairly nondescript office and cued up Double Top on the Alexa.
Double Top has almost everything you’d want by them, albeit in a confusing order. The first two albums are, I think, in the right order but the third is split over the two discs.
But I remembered that we had their Greatest Hits album in our house when I was young (the one with the neon faces on it) and had a fine old time listening to Darts. Although my memory of the Duke of Earl video was a bit sketchy as I thought it took place in snow…which it clearly wouldn’t eat with the naked woman playing a cello in between the TOTP performance.
Thanks for posting this. Only eight gigs and none of them are in Ireland north or south so enjoy them anyone who gets to see them.
There’s a decent, is short, documentary on YouTube about them as well…
I can thoroughly recommend them to the house. This gig was postponed for two years so that upped the anticipation. Replaying the first album the week before the gig reminded me how tight and well produced the band were. Also, they could have gone down the Showaddywaddy route of cover after cover but many of their hits were band written especially the beautiful Dont Let It Fade Away, written by guitarist George Currie.
Blimey! I too had that k-tel (K-TEL!!!) album. Hairy Dog is an interesting venue, like many regional cities have, a home of tribute bands, but host to a folk festival in coming months that might warrant a trip up the A38
I now have Darts on my wishlist. Shame they’re not coming anywhere near the North East this year.
Interesting to see that of the eight gigs they’re playing in 2022, one of them is in East Hagbourne, a place with a population of just 1,882. I can only assume that that’s one of the band is a local.